Blind Dates

A few years ago when the singer, TV presenter and celebrity Cilla Black died, there were a lot of tributes to her that took the ‘simple girl from Liverpool done good’ line with the obituary. It was The Guardian that pointed out what should have been more obvious, namely that someone who had spent nearly twenty years presenting prime time Saturday night television was more than someone who had had a lucky accident of fame. However much the show ‘Blind Date’ was scripted for the contestants, Cilla had to engage with them, respond to them, improvise and ensure that everything stayed entertaining. She was talented but clearly the tabloid obituary writers preferred not to acknowledge that.

It seems extraordinary now that ‘Blind Date’ started to lose its appeal when it became clear that much of it was scripted. Now we have reality shows like ‘Made in Chelsea’ which start with a warning that ‘some scenes have been added to enhance your enjoyment’. In other words, this is just a soap without properly trained (or paid) actors. It is rather like thinking back to a property makeover show of the early 2000s which was subject to a complaint that it had exploited the owner of one home for entertainment purposes. Now we would probably respond, ‘of course they did’ as we are a bit wiser about how little reality there is in reality television.

The reason that I have been thinking about ‘Blind Date’ is that I am now in the happy (yes, happy) position where I have three groups of friends working on trying to get blind dates for me. I genuinely approve of the process. If you are my Friend on Facebook, I hope that you appreciate that I only Friended you because I thought that you had single, female friends. Hold on, it would be really embarrassing if you thought that I Friended you because I thought that you were in some way interesting or relevant to my life ... awkward.

What occurred to me the other day was that the whole process tells you something about your friend as well as about any date who they find for you (for a start, it tells you that they understand that they are only your Friend because they have single, female friends). There was a very good illustration of this after the work Christmas party. Standing or rather swaying back and forth on the station platform, a colleague started to tell me that she was determined to find someone among her female friends as a blind date for me. I thanked her and would not have said any more but for the fact that she started to describe the kind of woman who she thought that I would want to date. When she first met me, she explained, she thought that someone like our colleague C would be ideal for me. Now she realised that I would find C boring and that I was looking for someone ‘fesity’.

Let us leave aside a few things here – firstly the idea that she was looking for a blind date for me from the first time that she met me and secondly the fact that C actually has a boyfriend and he once bought me a strawberry daiquiri, so it is not as if I am not aware of this fact. However, let us concentrate on this word ‘fesity’. It has come up a few times. The night before, another friend had described a woman who he was trying to set me up with as ‘feisty’ with that clearly an attractive quality. Here is my question – is being described as ‘fesity’ a sexist comment?

I cannot think of any situation in which a man would be described as feisty. No-one is going to say to me, ‘despite having drinks with fruit in, you are a lot feistier than C’s boyfriend’ are they? I suspect that feisty is shorthand for something that only women can be. Personally, I would like to meet a woman who knows her own mind, has opinions she is willing to defend (with a little flexibility) and is not interested in silently deferring to the wisdom of her 'betters'. I suspect that because men are not subject to the same sexism in society, we never need to be feisty. Women have to be feisty if they want to be treated equally. In other words, I do not blame the people describing potential dates as feisty, I blame the sexism of society.

And yes, I do believe that I am feistier than C’s boyfriend but, let us be honest now, you knew that because C would never have been feisty enough for me.

In fact, I have started to find this process so intriguing that I have stopped giving any thoughts or helpful pointers to friends when they say, ‘I think that I know someone ...’ I would much rather work out what their suggestion says about their impression of me. It is a fascinating way to have an insight into how other people see you. I am actually rather touched that in most cases, they are quite accurate in their impressions. It always surprises me to find that people are listening.

Last week, I found myself in conversation with a friend who was setting me up on a blind date. There had been various reasons why the date had not yet happened and he was explaining his plans and describing the woman involved. I thought that this was another great opportunity to work out how someone comes to the conclusion that I would be the right person for them. What was it, I wondered, that gave him the impression that this woman might enjoy my company? What nuance, what personality quirk was the attraction? Apparently she said to him, ‘I want to marry a man who plays the piano’. Okay, I suppose that that would make you think of me.

Of course I am grateful to friends who know that, much as I have a content life as a singleton, I would like to share it with someone. I would not want you to think that I am trivialising their efforts. I thank them but I also want the opportunity to speak my mind about this curious phase of life. Me, I am just feisty like that.